The land disposal restrictions effective for wastes have created a need for technologies that can meet the best demonstrated available technologies (BDAT) treatment standards. However, such technologies are in short supply.
For example, the natural gas industry has begun to remediate the numerous metering sites that have been contaminated with mercury from manometers installed along their pipelines. In May of 1993, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations no longer allowed soils contaminated with mercury to be landfilled without meeting certain treatment standards. These regulations are known as the land disposal restrictions or land ban. The EPA land disposal restrictions were developed to prevent hazardous substances from being landfilled that were considered leachable and would present future environmental problems or for those compounds that could be recycled. Originally, the land ban for mercury-containing wastes was to go into effect in May of 1992. However, due to the lack of available technologies considered BDAT for mercury-contaminated waste, the effective date for meeting the treatment standard for mercury-containing wastes was extended until May of 1993.
The land ban treatment standards for mercury-containing waste (non-wastewater) apply to media that is characterized to meet the condition of a toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) concentration of greater than 0.2 milligram per liter. If soil fails the TCLP criteria, the waste must be treated to meet the treatment standards.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a remediation technique that is useful in separating contaminants from solids.